The Starling Still Sings (Lewis Pullman X Reader)

In your small, conservative town where appearances matter more than truth, you've been the quiet one. The good girl. The one who helps in Sunday school, sings in the choir, and keeps her knees closed and eyes down like you're supposed to. But everything starts to unravel the summer Lewis Pullman comes home.

He's the preacher's son-older, quiet, once a golden boy who left for seminary and returned looking weathered, with sadness in his eyes and hands that tremble when they graze yours. Everyone here speaks about him in whispers now, about why he left, why he came back. You're assigned to help him lead the youth theater program at the church, and soon you're spending your afternoons under fluorescent lights and lingering gazes, rewriting scripture into scripts, pretending not to feel the weight of him behind you when he leans in too close.

You're supposed to be above temptation. He's supposed to know better. But in the humid silence of your hometown, you both break in secret-slowly, beautifully, and with the kind of hunger that leaves bruises.

A story of unspoken desires, quiet rebellion, and the ache of two people who were never allowed to want what they do.

Thank you to @sturniolofan56 for the stunning request that inspired this story.